Lots of video outputs (2 component videos), silver looks, flat screen, good sound, HD ready, DVD looks excellent, DSS was an improvement over my old Panasonic 27", nice cabinet.

I could see wave on the glass when it is reflecting from the window, a light green spots on the lower left coner (I will be replacing it for another this week). The manual is pretty simple no details.

First let me tell you what I have:

Sony 36XBR400 TV
Onkyo TX777 receiver
Sony DVD Changer
Acoustic Research AR5 front speakers
Acoustic Research AR4C center speaker
Acoustic Research AR17 rear surround speakers
Dish Network JVC 4922 dish receiver

Here is how I connected my video:

Monster components video cv1000 cable from the dvd to the XBR. Monster S-video v500 cable from satellite receiver to XBR. For sound I have Monster Tsolink digital optical cable to the receiver.

With this TV and the connections mentioned above I didn't see any of the problems the previous reviewers stated. For DVD, the picture is excellent. Nothing comes closer to this picture that I have seen except for HD. It is like looking at your computer moniter pictures. Watching this tv doesn't hurt my eyes because the picture is so clear and soft. For satellite, using S-video it is good. When I used coxial cable, forget it - a major improvement over coxial. If you don't have S-video at least use composite RCA cable. An improvement over my old Panasonic on a lot of channels, and some channels about the same. Not sure about regular cable never had it. Overall I have very happy with the picture.

The tv has 4 modes: vivid, standard, movie, pro. My preference is - pro, standard, movie, vivid. You can select either interlace or progressive mode. They look about the same, but when I use interlace the info box that comes up when I use my DSS to tell me what the movie was about shows up jagged, with progressive the info box was still.

So far the problem is the wave on the glass is reflective with my widows and a small green spot on the lower right.
I am planning on replacing another one because of this.

Overall this is a great tv and the price is reseable.

Similar Products Used:

Sony Projection, Panasonic.

sleek look

picture, picture , picture

Extremely doctored picture looks like an old vcr image..but no lines LOL..Caliberated today still stinks ..The set is 4000 dollars Canadian with taxes included..not worth it..Thank god Costco has good return policy..extremely heavy

Similar Products Used:

KV36FV16

Great Picture!

Very Heavy. Get some help to move it.

What an outstanding set. Used "Video Essentials" DVD to set up picture, and just had to have one. Saved ~750 by buying at outlet (refurbished not a scratch on it, and it comes with same warrenty as new).

Picture quality with 16:9 dvd, wealth of inputs

Varying picture quality with everything
Red push

Boy is this set is a mixed bag. First off, this is the 1st tv that I have purchased without ever liking the picture in any store. I know that sounds crazy but I had read many
positive things both in this group and various magazines.
The hdtv feature was important because ultimately a DVDO
iScan line doubler will be hooked up to the set. Hopefully this will improve the picture somewhat over the DRC which
seems to work well only on sources that were good to begin with. Most of our tv viewing is from a 10' c-band dish with
4DTV receiver. Analog reception is as good as it gets and the digital signals are not as highly compressed as either of the pizza pie systems. My two biggest complaints with this tv are pixelation and red push. When we were looking in various stores at this set the picture was never clear.
It reminded me of watching an mpeg on a pc at 1.5 times its native size. All of these stores were using dss systems except Sears which had cable. The one hooked to cable had the lines that several people in this forum have complained about. The pictures with the DSS were heavily pixelated
which I figured was probably the highly compressed signal.
I would like to believe that this tv is just highly revealing of the source material, but I can't say that I do.
First thing I did was break out the video essentials disc.
After calibration it was much better than out of the box.
Don't get me wrong the picture on this tv with dvd is amazing with the 16:9 squeeze. But I was not that impressed
with dvd's that play full screen. The picture doesn't seem
as clear as the 32" analog set it replaced. I have not put
the sets next to each other so maybe my expectations are too high. There was a recent review where the guy said that he would adjust the picture to his liking then change the channel and hate it. I know how you feel. Sometimes peoples
faces that are close to the camera reveal more detail than you ever wanted but at the same time faces in the background appear pixelated and washed out. On an analog set this would appear as out of focus but on this tv it looks much worse. I guess that I haven't yet narrowed down exactly how I feel. Sunday watching the playoff games the picture looked like a bunch of computer generated people running around. Playstation 2 looks better than this. Sunday
night watching movies on HBO it was awesome. There are 2 questions that I would like to ask of those in this group.
Has anyone tried the DVDO iScan on this set?
Can anyone tell me which settings in the service menu must be changed to back off the red push?

Similar Products Used:

JVC 32"
Pioneer 53" rphdtv

Crystal clear picture (DVD), Multiple inputs, 16:9 enhancement

VCR content seems pixelized.

Having just entered the world of large screen televisions, I'm not an expert of the subject that many of you are. However, I have done a lot of research lately and picked the xbr400 over 3 different HDTV ready widescreen projection televisions (40" - 46").

The picture on this t.v. is absolutely incredible. Many have said that cable looks bad, but I don't see it. Sure it has some weird artifacts at times, but I had the opportunity to view this set next to an analog 36" with cable hooked to both.

I would much rather have the slight artifacts than constantly see black lines on the bigger picture. Unless you have HDTV or DVD hooked to it, imperfections will be magnified on a bigger t.v.

My fox channels appear to be really "red" in color, but I'm assuming that is a problem with the channel, not the t.v. Played "A Bug's life" on it yesterday and was astonished.

Hook this bad boy up to your surround system and have fun!

Similar Products Used:

None, the largest tv I had before this was a 20" JVC

Wonderful picture and flexability for components

weight and sensitivity

An update of my previous "review" that I wrote about two months ago. I have read all the reviews posted. Since my original review my cable provider has upgraded and I now have "digital" cable, which really means certain channels, primarily movie but some others like discovery, history are digital. As I stated before, I have a strong cable signal and good connecting cables (a direct result of reading many of the reviews posted here.
On the digital channels, the picture I get with this set is simply breath taking. I am not as knowledgeable as some of the people here who have posted reviews, but the sony xbr 400 that I have has not shown any of the problems that I have read in some reviews. This set is worth the money I paid. On the non digital channels, the picture quality is from excellent to good but the picture is clearly inferior to the digital channels. Oh, and I read the other day that for 2001, Sony will market a 40" xbr but that the price will be over $3500, list. Just wanted to pass the info on.
Finally, I bought this set as a "transition" tv as I stated in my original review. After three months I am still pleased with the choice I made. The problems others have had mystify me but I will leave it to others, more knowledgeable in this area, to comment.

Similar Products Used:

1991 sony xbr and mitsubitshi projection tv's

Gorgeous, sublime picture, particularly with 16:9 enhanced DVDs; cable and VHS also look beautiful depending on the source; picture-and-picture is great

Shockingly weak owner's manual (usually Sony's fairly detailed on features and functions); the remote is fine but I'd like something a little better designed for my money; wish picture settings weren't global

I've had this TV for 2 days but already I'm won over. I'm giving it a 4-star rating assuming that 5 stars would be that elusive product that's absolutely perfect in every single way. But this is close!

I did a lot of searching around and reading of reviews, both professional and from other owners in forums such as this prior to purchase. I was originally considering the 32" version or the Sony KV-36FV26.

I was concerned about the ability of the DRC to display acceptable pictures with my cable connection (Time Warner Digital Cable). In-store displays of broadcast sources looked god-awful and almost drove me away from this product (I wan't impressed by Panasonic's TAU line in this regard, either). Luckily, I figured that my cable signal would be stronger than that of any store, where they split the signal over about 50-100 sets.

I'm very happy with cable reception, which is not to say it's totally perfect -- but it's really very good. Some channels look better than others but it seems to depend more on the original broadcast source material than on Time Warner's compression system. After some tweaking and playing around, I've come up with a beautiful cable picture that I'm very, very happy with.

When the DRC works, it's wonderful. With lesser-quality sources, it does its best with varying results.

16:9 enhanced DVDs using component cables are stunning. The picture quality is incredible and entirely satisfying -- definitely worth the price of admission to the 36" XBR club. The "window" analogy that several people use is true, there's a glossy, glassy look to the picture.

Speaker sound could be slightly better but it still does the job (and most of us are using external speakers anyhow).

I've not yet calibrated the set but just from playing around with the various settings, this unit rocks and delivers on picture quality.

Some people seem unaware that there are various picture modes ("Vivid," "Standard," "Movie, "Pro") that produce dramatically different results and which are each tweakable with the picture controls. A friend of mine who also owns a lower-model Wega was completely unaware that he had this feature and was wondering why everything looked so lousy (he was watching in the high-contrast "Vivid" mode). My point is, use owner's reviews as a guide but get out there and play with the TV in person before purchasing so you can see what it's capable of for yourself (and don't assume that the TV store is feeding it the best broadcast signal, either).

FYI, my set was manfactured in December 2000, so it's a newborn.

I'm in video nirvana with this set.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 27XBR55

Great sound, a good menu.

a bad picture even with satellite.

This tv is great but, I had to go through a headache because the first tv I bought it had problems with the color, it had some kind of green stain in the corner of the tv set. I called Circuit City and they told me to bring it back to the store, you can imagine I dificult is to lift tha tv, it was so heavy that I had to call the store back and tell that they had to send somebody to pick it up, and the did it. Now, a week later, the brought me another one which it looks better, I tried it with my DVD player and it looks fantastic, I tried it with my new Satellite Dish from Direct TV and it looks not that great, the picture looks wash out and to me do not look like a digital tv.

Nice looking set, DVD pic is cool, and overall nice!

Damn purple bar at the bottom of my anamorphic sqeeze and I have to turn the brightness do make it disappear!

Ok I love this tv with the exception of a damn purple at the bottom of the picture during a anamporphic squeeze on movies with a 2.35:1 aspec ratio! What should I do? Does anyone else have this problem? I have to turn down the brightness do make it disappear, but my AVIA DVD makes me turn it back up slightly and I can see it slightly on my right hand side of my tv! Help anyone do I need a sony rep. out to my apt. or what? I would give this a 5, but the damn purple bar! Thank you!

DVD

everything else so far

I was able to switch out my kv36fv15 for the newer, hd ready xbr400 since I work at CC, and I was excited once we finally carried it in the house. DVD quality was amazing, but Directv and dreamcast look BAD. It looks very blocky. On regular broadcasts, my kv36fv15 looked much cleaner. I'm still trying to work it out though, and I'm hoping I can get it fixed. Already ran Video Essentials through it. I was hoping it was just an incompatibility with my Tivo and the DRC, but that didn't fix it. Based on all of the other reviews I've read, it doesn't look like it will get any better, but I'm going to keep trying.

Similar Products Used:

Replaced a Sony KV-36FV15